


I'll be your friend and a fucked-up and everything

by Equinoxe



Category: London Spy
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 11:54:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6703573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Equinoxe/pseuds/Equinoxe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I want to tell you a story about a man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll be your friend and a fucked-up and everything

 

_I want to tell you a story about a man._

 

Danny got dressed in the light from a lamp in the corner of the room. His client was taking a shower in the en-suite bathroom. He then put the soft trousers on. His expensive watch was on the nightstand table. There was a used condom in the bin.

 

Steam entered the room the same time a middle-aged man stepped out in bath robe. His salt-and-pepper hair was still damp. He looked drained, yet oddly content.

 

“You’re leaving already?” Asked the man in a quiet voice.

 

Danny smiled; he could answer, but he knew his client’s contentment was fleeting, so he opted to prolong it.

 

He watched the man dry himself, a familiar scene that he had seen so often in different hotel rooms. Danny waited until the man was buttoning his dress shirt.

 

“It’s quite late already.” He always made sure that the way he talked was neither too courteous or curt, “If you would excuse me,”

 

“Of course, Danny, of course. Thank you for seeing me tonight.” The words came with a few 20-pound notes. Tips. Danny smiled again, “It’s fine.” He kept his emotions in reign.

 

“Goodnight” He said before exiting through the wooden door.

 

 

_While everyone was laughing and drinking,_

They had something akin to tradition on Wednesday night, go out, get food, get drunk, and talk. His flatmates had no idea he stopped working at the warehouse a long time ago. He still ate the same processed food, drank the same cheap gin, and wore the same clothes.

 

“So, who’s the flavour of this week?” Someone questioned Sara, who was sitting opposite to Danny. She laughed. “Sod off.”

 

“The other day, I think I saw you with a bunch of flowers.”

 

Everyone in the table cooed. Danny couldn’t help but perked up. “Who’s the unlucky chap?”

 

“Come on Danny, it’s nothing.” Sara said. The reply made Mike, his other flatmate snort.

 

“It’s 2015 and you still got flowers, it’s something, you brat.”

 

Danny looked around the table then the pub. They were being too loud, but no one seemed to care. When he looked back, the attention had already shifted to him, “How about you Danny? You’ve been seeing someone right?”

 

“Not really,” he continued before any of them could give him crap, “Let’s just say I’ve been getting laid.”

 

“ _’Been getting laid’_ , way to put it Danny boy.” One of the group shouted from the far end of the corner. Sara eyed him suspiciously. He gave her a reassuring smile. Danny stood up with his empty glass.

 

“Who wants more drink?”

 

 

_...he would just walk, until he reached the exact same spot_

Melanie was smoking outside the door which Danny just walked through.

 

“You going out again?”

 

Rhetorical question as she had already seen him in a blazer and leather shoes. Danny nodded.

 

“Doesn’t smell like normal cigarette does it.” Passing her, he asked smirking. She snorted and waved back as he waved her goodbye.

 

Danny moved towards the tube station along the familiar path. His leather shoes made distinct thuds each step he took. There was a half broken street light across the street half way through that reminded him of his childhood town.

 

Sometimes he asked himself how did he get to this very point. He asked himself why his life was not what he had been making it to be. It was like one day he was completely normal and the next drug, sex, and everything else that shouldn’t be here had become the new normal.

 

He never had a definite answer for himself. But he kept asking. Danny was not a terribly smart man.

 

 

_where he’d sit with his back towards those people._

 

The Italian restaurant Danny came to was quiet, which was typical for a meeting point: somewhere quiet in Soho. The waiter led him to the table reserved under his client’s name. The client was not there yet, so he sat down on the outside chair, his back away from people.

                                            

His client almost always preferred to sit facing the door, so they could easily see who entered the restaurant. The clients liked to know their affairs were well concealed. Some of these days Danny had to play _Daniel_ , the business acquaintance.

 

“Danny”

 

An old man greeted him from behind. Danny stood up and gave him a firm hand-shake and his business smile. The client ordered the most expensive Prosecco on the menu.

 

“What are you up to this week?” He started a conversation. Some clients were nice enough to consider him a pseudo-friend, some just wanted to fuck.

 

“You know, the usual’s.” The man answered in a tired manner. Danny remembered seeing his family on a tabloid in a red carpet event. “People are so hard to deal with these days. Once they got something, they start wanting more.”

 

He nodded and sipped his drink. It tasted like peach.

 

“I can’t really blame them though, as much as it pains me,” His client said, pouring balsamic vinegar onto the plate. “I’m one of those people.”

 

Danny offered a dry chuckle. He wished all of his clients had been inconsiderate cruel arseholes. It would have been easier. He wouldn’t have cared about them.

 

“My wife came home smelling like men cologne the other day.” His client said casually, “Funny thing is, I noticed because I used that exact same cologne when I was an apprentice.”

 

Danny feigned to laugh along. He made a mental note to order a stronger drink for both of them when the bottle was finished. It never got easier, and he never got better. Laughter of joy was heard from behind, and he wondered how could people around them not notice how fucked up they both were.

 

 

_While he did everything he possibly could to signal to the world that he wanted to be left alone_

 

“Where is it, where is it, where is it?” Danny mumbled to himself. His hands were trembling, he felt like the sky was falling down.

 

“Dear, are you all right?” A fellow commuter asked him with a worried look on her face. She reminded him of his distant aunt. “You look so pale.”

 

His hand came up to wipe away the sweat on his forehead instinctively. Danny politely shook his head while he spun around and walked back the the direction he just came from.

 

Tonight was a bad night.

 

The client was borderline maniac. Had always been, but today he had been extra horrendous. He treated Danny like shit, got off on making he feel like dirt, but paid really well. Every time Danny swore he would stop seeing the man, every time he would agree to meet him one last time.

 

That tiny pill the client gave him was hellish. The guy would kill him at some point if this continued, unintentionally or not. _This is the real last time_ , he cursed under his breath. Go grab the wallet and goodbye _forever_.

 

He entered the hotel building and quickly moved for the lift. Sweats ran down his back. He felt like throwing up. Danny didn’t think of knocking, he left the door unlocked.

 

“Sorry, I forgot…”

 

Danny froze.

 

His client was laying on the floor, his head a bloody mess. He wasn’t moving, or breathing.

 

Then he saw a man in the middle of the room.

 

Blond hair, tall, sharp face features, he had a gun in his hand. The man’s face didn’t show any emotion, but for a strange reason, Danny could feel he was panicked. He looked back to the body, then up to the murderer.  

 

“I, um—“ Danny swallowed, “forgot my wallet.” He motioned to his wallet on top of a small desk in the room like it had mattered. The blond man still had laser-sharp eyes trained on Danny.

 

The room was spinning faster and it was then that Danny finally realised this might be the last moment of his life.

 

 

_more than anything, he hoped that someone passing would understand that what he really wanted was the exact opposite_

Calmly on another end of the bed, he sat with a bottle of water in his hand. From here, he was shielded from his client’s disfigured head.

 

“I’m glad someone was finally sent for him. The guy was lower than a pig.” Danny spoke quietly. Any moment from now he would die. His heart throbbed, ironically more from the effect of the pill, not the situation.

 

Danny took a sip from the bottle. There were things he still wanted to do, yet he wasn’t too strongly against not being alive anymore. Flatmates would be sad, or angry, or both, but they would come terms with it.

 

He thought about the school he was saving up for. It would have been nice. But not having a useless existence anymore would be nice as well.

 

“What are you doing?” He looked up at the blonde after some time had passed, impatient. “You’re dragging it.”

 

The standing man drew a deep breath.

 

“Can you keep a secret?”

 

 

_and that this someone would sit next to him_

 

They walked side by side in the middle of nothingness that was London after midnight like it were the most natural thing to do after such kind of encounter. Street lights were lit, but the path was empty, and the road was empty. They kept walking until they reached the Thames’ bank.

 

Danny had his wallet in his pocket, the man beside him had the gun.

 

The taller man stared blankly into the darkness in front of him. Danny still felt dizzy. He didn’t understand a single thing that had happened tonight yet didn’t feel like asking.

 

“Don’t tell anyone.” Deep voice penetrated the silence. “Or I’ll have to kill you.”

 

Danny nodded, the only the response he could think of. He had the strangest urge to say something for the man beside him looked absolutely _-uh--_ miserable, his mind supplied. He tried to blink the audacity that had started to build up inside him away. They stood there quietly for what felt like forever.

 

“You did the right thing.”

 

Danny inevitably, and perhaps inappropriately, blurted out.

 

“At least I feel like you did the right thing, fuck everyone who thinks otherwise.”

 

The silence was deafening.

 

 

_and strike up a conversation._

 

Slowly afterwards, the blond man turned to him. With his expressionless face, he nodded.

 

 

_I was that man_

 

London at night was a different city, Danny hadn’t been paying attention enough to notice until today. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he finally decided the night was not as bad as he thought it was, or as he thought it would be.

 

“My name is Danny,”

 

Cold breeze touched his face, refreshing, relieving. He was enjoying the emptiness so much he almost jumped at the response.

 

“Alex,”

 

Their shoulders touched a little. Danny smiled.

 

 

_and you were that someone_


End file.
